Newspaper suspended, TV station raided in Kyrgyzstan

New York, April 2,
2010—Authorities in Kyrgyzstan should halt their ongoing crackdown
on independent and opposition news outlets, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today. A Bishkek court suspended a pro-opposition newspaper on
Wednesday—the third such suspension this month—while financial police
confiscated newsroom computers belonging to an independent Web-based television
channel on Thursday, effectively taking it off the air.

“We are deeply disturbed by the actions of Kyrgyz
authorities to systematically unplug their citizens from independent and
opposition news sources,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said.

On Wednesday, the Oktyabrsky District Court in Bishkeksuspended the
pro-opposition, Kyrgyz-language newspaper Forum,
according to the regional news Web site Ferghana.
The court acted on a complaint filed by the Oktyabrsky District Prosecutor’s
Office in Bishkek, which said a March 30 Forum
article contained “appeals to forcibly overthrow the constitutional order,” the
Bishkek-based news agency AKIpress reported.

Prosecutors are continuing to investigate the paper in
connection with the piece, titled “When the motherland falls upon hard times,
may all her sons turn into lightning bolts,” said Sultan Kanazarov, Ferghana’s Kyrgyzstan bureau chief. Forum has been suspended for the duration
of that investigation, he said.

The shutdown follows the March 18 suspensions of two other
Kyrgyz-language newspapers, Achyk Sayasat
(Open Politics) and Nazar (Viewpoint).
The Pervomaisky District Court in Bishkek ordered the
suspension of both publications while it hears complaints that they insulted
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The case stems from a March 16 article by an exiled
opposition activist, carried by both papers, in which he accused the president of
corruption, nepotism, and failure to address pressing social and economic
issues.

On Thursday, financial police raided the Bishkek headquarters
of the independent Web-based television outlet Stan TV, confiscating all newsroom
computers and staffers’ personal laptops. Authorities then sealed the outlet’s
premises, the local and international press reported. Police claimed the raid
was prompted by suspicions that the outlet was using unlicensed Microsoft
software. CPJ research shows that authorities in the region have often used
such allegations as a pretense to harass critical news outlets.

At a Bishkek press conference today, Stan TV General
Director Ilya Sivokhin said police officers did not produce a warrant or say
who ordered the action. “This is a revenge for our reports about the
opposition, for our reporting about what is really happening in the country,”
Kirill Stepanyuk, Stan TV’s chief editor, told Reuters.

Stan TV, Forum, Achyk Sayasat, and Nazar have all carried reporting and commentary critical of Bakiyev
and his government. So too had the Kyrgyz
service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
which was recently forced off local stations, and the independent regional news
Web sites Ferghana and CentrAsia, which were blocked
domestically this month.

All of the outlets had reported on a March opposition convention,
at which representatives demanded that Bakiyev dismiss his relatives from
government positions, and that the government lower electricity and heating
costs. The oppositionists said they would hold mass protests on April 7 if
their demands were not met, according to the local press